Fort Collins apartment development

Several large apartment projects have been approved or are in development in the city (not all are intended for students): • Terra Vida: 240 units, Lady Moon Drive. Phase 1 is open. Planning has begun on Phase 2, an additional 240 units. Developer: Les Kaplan and Milestone Development of Denver • The Grove: 600 beds, Centre Avenue near The Gardens at Spring Creek. Developer: North Carolina-based Campus Crest. Status: Under construction • Choice Center: 676 beds, Prospect Road and College Avenue. Developer: Alabama-based Capstone Cos. Status: Under construction • Spring Creek Farm North: 315 units, northwest corner Timberline and Drake roads. Developer: McWhinney of Loveland. Status: Under construction • Mason Street Flats: 60 units, Mason Street. Developer: Brinkman Partners of Fort Collins. Status: Under construction • District at Campus West: 193 units, 674 beds. North side of West Plum Street between Aster Street and City Park Avenue. Status: Approved • Pura Vida: 52 bedrooms, Laurel Street. Developer: Chuck Bailey of Longmont. Status: Approved • Aspen Heights: 712 beds, North Fort Collins. Developer: Breckenridge Land Acquisition LP of Austin, Texas. Status: Approved • Lory Apartments are being replaced by Academic Village North: Going from about 100 beds to about 600 beds • Aggie Village North is being replaced by a so far unnamed project. Today it's home to about 280 students and their families, including children. Colorado State University officials want to knock down the low, sprawling complex of buildings and build a $108 million development to house up to 1,000 students, along with a dining hall, on the site north of Prospect and west of Centre Avenue. • Crowne on Timberline: 310 units, including 25 townhomes, on 12 acres at 6111 S. Timberline Road. Developer: Alan Levow of Birmingham, Ala.-based Crowne Partners Inc. Status: In the planning process

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Finding an apartment in Fort Collins is almost a contact sport these days. Hesitate even slightly with that deposit or lease and someone will elbow you out of the way.

Alisha McGinnis went to eight different apartments throughout Fort Collins on Tuesday and came away empty-handed. The disabled Navy veteran will enroll at Front Range Community College this summer through the GI Bill. With less than $1,100 in monthly benefits, McGinnis said she can afford to pay about $850 a month, including utilities.

The units she looked at “either had no availability until September or next year, they don’t accept students, charge more for students or won’t allow pets,” said McGinnis, 27, who is looking for a place for herself and her dog, Skyler.

McGinnis and others face an unbearably tight rental market with few available units, pricier rents and more stringent qualifications.

A new quarterly survey on multifamily housing vacancies and rents shows Fort Collins’ vacancy rate loosened from 2.5 percent for the fourth quarter last year to 5.5 percent while the average rent climbed to $1,037. The increased vacancy rate, caused by new units coming on line, belies the reality of higher rents and fewer units.

The difficulty compounds itself the closer you get to the Colorado State University campus, where vacancy rates are at 0.3 percent in the northwest part of town and 0.7 percent in the northeast, both areas around CSU.

According to the survey conducted in March, northwest and northeast Fort Collins had 15 total vacancies among 1,845 units compared with 271 openings among 3,154 in the rest of the city.

The numbers are skewed by southeast Fort Collins — defined as east of College Avenue and south of Prospect Road — where the vacancy rate was greater than 13 percent.

Ron Throupe, a professor at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business and co-author of the vacancy survey, said the numbers can change from quarter to quarter depending on how many survey responses it gets from each community. In March, 4,999 surveys from throughout Fort Collins were returned, a couple hundred more than the fourth quarter of 2012.

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Old Town Square Properties, which owns or manages about 400 units, has few vacancies — none at its nearly 200-unit Brookview Apartments, said Ed Stoner, who manages Old Town Square Properties. As in any supply and demand economy, the tight rental market has allowed property managers to raise rents, be more selective in their tenants and eliminate incentives.

Old Town Square Properties turns down about one in every four applications, tenants it would have welcomed a few years ago, Stoner said. When times were tough, the company charged a $199 security deposit. It got tenants in the door, Stoner said, “but we paid for it, too. We had a lot of trashed units.”

Once vacancy rates tightened, Old Town Square Properties raised rents and security deposits and is getting a better quality tenant, he said. “If you make it more expensive, people are more likely to take care of it.” The company rents units for between $677 and $997.

But it’s not all about property managers putting more money in their pocket, Stoner said. Many are using the added cash flow to improve their buildings.

Brookview, Stoner said, replaced its heating and ventilation systems, made the units more energy efficient and cleaned them up. “We’re getting things back in shape there,” he said.

Armadillo Property Management Co. is laying new carpet or linoleum, and painting and repairing units as needed as tenants move out.

“Our hands were tied so much a few years ago when we couldn’t raise rents, we weren’t able to do the improvements we are now. It’s exciting,” said Bev Perina, owner of Armadillo. The additional work helps employ local trades, “which is such a good thing for the local economy,” she said.

While students like McGinnis struggle to find places to live, apartments that cater to students coming from the dorms are filling up faster than ever.

Ram’s Village leasing manager Kaye Jolly said this is the earliest units have been pre-leased in years.

“They start coming in sooner to lease and we hit 100 percent sooner,” she said. “It’s really exciting; 75 percent of them are either coming to us for the first time or coming from the dorms.”

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Ram’s Village leases all units that aren’t currently rented to Campus Crusade for Christ, which comes to Fort Collins every other year. When it leaves, there is a host of students ready to move in. Jolly leases a one-bedroom for $825 this year, up from $775 last year, and a three-bedroom for $500 per room, up from $480.

Stoner expects this will be the last year vacancy rates are so tight. With more than 5,000 apartments under construction or on the drawing boards, many geared toward students as CSU works to increase its enrollment, the shortage should ease.

“We are going through the worst boom and bust thing I’ve ever seen with the number of units coming on,” Stoner said. Nice units in great locations near campus will get the tenants they want, but those farther from campus will have more trouble, he said.

Several hundred units in the pipeline will be higher-end, nonstudent-oriented units that charge top dollar, such as those planned at Foothills Mall and along Timberline Road. “They’ll have a hard time competing with each other” while those with less expensive rents will be well in demand, Stoner said.

None of that helps McGinnis right now as she returns to school to find a new career. In the Navy she was a welder and sheet-metal worker, before that a firefighter/emergency medical technician. After suffering an injury while on ship, she can no longer perform the heavy physical work she did before.

She is continuing her quest for an apartment and may have to settle for a roommate.

“I need to be in a new place at the beginning of July. I’m trying to find a place I can secure for then, but it’s proven to be very difficult.”